Altered States

Chapter 4

It was madness, it was mayhem. It was a mystery that none of them could even begin to sort out or understand. But the evidence of their senses soon told them something was amiss. The air around them was suddenly charged with static electricity and Tasarov’s bushy hair began to flare out at odd angles beneath his headset. Volsky felt an strange tingling on his fingertips, and was surprised to see what looked like tiny sparks there. A peculiar light seemed to emanate from the very heart of the ship itself, deep below decks where the reactors labored behind their shield of 300mm armor. A dense mist surrounded the whole region, thick and impenetrable, and scored by streaks of glimmering green lightning. There was a tang of ozone in the air about them and a sudden chill, the cold draft of infinity as the hole in time began to open.

Then they heard it, that deep sound that quavered in the air, yet it seemed held in a restless suspension, neither climbing the scales or descending as it often did in the past. It was just a long, distended note, a breathless suspense, an interminable chord that hung in the air and would not abate or diminish. Finally the strange drone gradually faded to the barest whisper and then all was quiet. The light still glimmered around them, and they could see that they were on a sallow grey sea, the skies pale and wan all about the ship.

“We’ve moved again, sir.” Fedorov stated the obvious, and Volsky nodded, feeling a bit dizzy as he sometimes did after the strange time displacement effects.

“Well, it appears our new control rod works. Signal Chief Dobrynin and ask him what he thinks.”

Fedorov was still with Nikolin, but before they could send down the message there was a sighting alert from watchmen posted above the bridge on the radar mast. With ship’s systems groggy after a shift, this was a precaution Rodenko had ordered as part of normal battle stations.

“Ship sighted, Admiral, bearing 150, but we have no radar yet. The system is rebooting now.”

“Ship sighted?” Volsky swiveled his chair to have a look at the bearing. “My god,” he breathed. “More than one ship, Mister Rodenko. Have a look, please.”

Rodenko had been leaning over his old radar station watching the Fregat reboot, but now he stood, eyes searching the grey horizon through the viewports. Fedorov was also up, immediately looking for sun and moon position, though both were no more than diffused light behind the low sky.

“We’re not where we should be,” he said in a low voice, more to himself than anyone else. He was quickly to his navigation station, slipping into a chair and winking at Tovarich there. He was the ship’s new navigator when Fedorov had been promoted up the chain of command.

“Tovarich, how is your system?”

“Rebooting is nearly complete, sir. I should have computer assistance momentarily.”

“Then key in sun and moon data for our last reported position and find out what we should expect to see in 2021. I’ll plot present sun and moon positions and we’ll do a reverse calculation.” In effect, he wanted to key the approximate positions of the sun and moon and ask the computer what date the two celestial bodies would be in those positions.

“I wish we could see the moon through this cloud.”

“I have the data up now, sir. We should not be seeing much of any moon at all for 2021. It was a new moon on June 10th.”

Fedorov looked over his shoulder to the place in the sky where the cold while light of a moon shone behind the clouds. That was clearly not a new moon, he knew. It was a least half full to make that much light, and the sun was still up as well, also lost behind the clouds, and low on the horizon.

“In 2021 that moon would have to be rising and virtually invisible,” said Tovarich. “And given its position in the sky the sun would not still be up. It sets at 17:06 hours if the day remains the same.”

“No…It can’t be June 10th or 11th in 2021. We would still be at Severomorsk before we ever went to sea for those live fire exercises, and so we could not appear here as well. It would have to be later in the year, at another time to avoid any paradox. We’ll have to reverse the calculation and find the date from this current sun and moon position,” he concluded, but after keying the command he was not getting any good prospects. It was soon evident to him that the particular configuration of these relative sun and moon positions was not going to yield a convenient date close to their shift time in the year 2021. In fact, he was having difficulty getting any close match at all in that year, which led him to the conclusion that something was very wrong here.

“Admiral,” said Nikolin, “I’m hearing Morse code-international call signs asking for identification.”

“At least they are polite,” said Volsky. “Look there, gentlemen.” He pointed out the viewport and they could now see bright lights winking at them on the near horizon.”

“Admiral,” said Rodenko, an edge of trouble in his voice. “Radar is back up, very short range but enough to reveal a very large formation of surface contacts out there. Fifty discrete contacts, sir, and that close one in the van signaling with lights is quite substantial.”

“Give me a Tin Man display. Let’s see what we have here, and as a precaution, Mister Samsonov, please ready the forward deck guns.”

“Aye, sir, guns reporting ready with manual backup and optical laser sighting. The ship’s fire control radars are not yet operational.”

“Very well, laser-optical will have to do.”

What in the world could be up here in the Sea of Okhotsk? Fifty ships? It would be nothing from our old Red Banner Fleet, Volsky knew. If they had managed to shift to 2021, all that was left was the Admiral Kuznetsov battlegroup, just a handful of surface vessels. Something told him they were about to have a very unexpected encounter here, and the look of that distant ship on the Tin Man was soon enough to confirm his worst suspicions.

* * *

Convoy HX-49 was a fairly large assemblage of merchantmen, oilers and cargo vessels out of Halifax on the 9th of June, 1940. It was the largest convoy to make the crossing to Liverpool that month, with several tankers carrying oil and lubricants, an ammunition ship carrying aircraft munitions, ships with steel and scrap iron, and a mix of grain, paper, wheat, wool, lumber, cotton and other odd resources. Considering its value it was lightly escorted, as U-boats were mostly congregating in the Atlantic south of Ireland at this time and little trouble was expected in the first week of the long journey east.

To avoid the wolfpack area the convoy route saw it steering northeast to a point just off Cape Farewell, Greenland and then turning gradually east to pass beneath Iceland to eventually sail north of Ireland, taking the narrow strait to pass the Clyde. At this point the convoy would disperse, with ships heading to any number of destination ports in the UK.

Two small destroyers from the British-Canadian Halifax Escort Force, Assiniboine and Saguenay, led the convoy out, then returned to Halifax a day later when the sole trans-Atlantic escort HMS Ausonia arrived to take up the duty on June 10. Oddly, Ausonia was not a warship by trade, but a large 14,000 ton ocean escort liner originally built by the Cunard line in 1921 and requisitioned and fitted out as an armed merchant cruiser when the war broke out.

She was given eight 152mm guns, four on each side, and a pair of 76mm guns with one fore and aft. A slow ship at just 15 knots, Ausonia could waddle along with the large pack of merchantmen, but looking after 50 ships was a tall order for her Captain, Horace Norman of the Royal Navy. There wasn’t anything he could do if they did encounter a submerged U-boat, and if a German raider were to come upon the convoy, the ship might try to look imposing with her size and give the impression that there was, indeed, a large British heavy cruiser present in escort.

This was just the dilemma Captain Norman found himself in on June 12th as he steamed in the van of the large 50 ship formation arrayed behind him in six wide rows of six to nine ships each. The sea was calm that day, the slate grey sky low, shrouding the horizon with clouds that made sighting potential threats a chancy affair. No one from the watch called the sighting, but the Captain had been watching the sea off his port bow when he saw what appeared to be a ripple of green lightning and a strange phosphorescent glow. Thinking he was seeing the onset of a sudden squall, his eye strayed to the nearby barometer, which raised an eyebrow. It read an even 30 millibars of pressure, approaching fair weather conditions, so he instinctively reached out and gave it a tap to see if the needle might be stuck, yet it remained unmoved.

“Have a look there, Mister Bates,” he said quietly to his Executive Officer. “I thought we were to have even seas and quiet skies for another 48 hours.”

Bates noted the odd light on the horizon. “Squall brewing up?” He raised his field glasses, taking a closer look without much concern. “It’s very odd, sir. St. Elmo’s fire?”

“More like ball or sheet lightning, yet no sound of any thunder, and the color is very strange.”

“It is, sir. Should we signal LDI and MAC that there may be rough weather ahead?” He was referring to the two call signs for the convoy Commodore and Vice Commodore steaming in the first line behind them.

“They undoubtedly can see what’s going on, but do note it for the log: 21:30 hours, sighted squall line on port horizon.” He looked about as if to survey the conditions behind him, seeing the convoy steaming sedately in those long slow lines. In this northern latitude the sun would not set for another two hours and a half moon was already up, but glowing through the clouds on another heading. So that peculiar lighting wasn’t a moonrise, he thought, and the sun was low to the west, and certainly not off our bow.

“Might it be an aurora, sir?” Bates was still watching through his field glasses.

“Never saw one so low on the horizon like that,” said Norman.

“Well, sir. It doesn’t look like anything to be concerned about.” But the longer he watched the more that trouble on the horizon loomed as a possible threat in his mind, and he soon saw something there that finally alarmed him, an odd angular shadow in the light.

“Perhaps we should send up to the mainmast to see if the watch has anything, sir.”

“Go ahead and call up, but we can see it as plain as day from here.”

Bates indulged himself, walking to the voice pipe up and asking about the contact. A minute passed before he heard a voice calling back, and now he was concerned.

“Ship sighted, Captain! Right at the edge of that squall.”

Now it was Captain Norman reaching for his field glasses, his eyes lost in the rubber cups as he squinted and adjusted the focus. Damn if it wasn’t true, he thought. Damn my eyes, there’s something there, a shadow crowned with lightning, and it looks big. He knew in his bones this was a warship.

“Mister Bates,” he said quickly, “pipe the W/T and report ship sighted, a warship, identity unknown. Give our position and ask if we’re getting a new escort. Otherwise I’m afraid we’ve an uninvited guest this evening. The ship will come to battle stations.”

“Aye sir. Battle Stations, and piping to W/T now.”

“Notify LDI and MAC and tell them we’re investigating. The convoy may have to come twenty points to starboard. Helm, port ten and ahead full.”

“Port ten, aye sir, and full on.”

The ship’s alarm was sounding and they could hear the scramble of heavy boots on the decks below. Men were already rushing to man the 76mm bow gun and he knew the same was happening on the larger 5.7 inch guns to port and starboard. Well, he thought, I hope to god you are not what you appear to be. They had heard nothing about any imminent threat from a German surface raider when they left port three days ago to link up with the convoy. The last information he had was that the British were busy with the final evacuation of Norway, and in fact, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were reported off the Norwegian coast on the 9th of June, but there was no way those ships could be here today.

“Mister Bates, signal that ship by light and wireless. Request identification.” The Captain knew that if this were a German raider he would likely get his answer with a salvo of 11-inch shells. In that event he had few options here. He would come about and present his broadside to the enemy, firing with four 152mm guns in the hope he might run the enemy off, but he did not think they would run, not when they did have better guns and a nice fat big target like Ausonia. Behind him the convoy would have to scatter, and he knew that even now the Commodore was tensely watching the situation, ready to give that order at the instant hostilities opened. Then it would be every man and ship on its own, like sheep scattering to flee from a prowling wolf.

That’s what the shadow looked like now, large, dark and threatening as Ausonia came around to have a good look at the contact, her nose pointed at the threat and search lights flashing, lamps fluttering, the fingers on the wireless keys tapping out their fitful messages.

Bad weather was now the least of Captain Norman’s worries.